Papua's Old Flag?

Do You Remember Papua's Old Flag?

Mr. John Guise, native member for the Eastern Papua electorate in the Papua-New Guinea Legislative Council, wants final union between Papua and New Guinea and a flag and a national anthem to go with it.

In the Legislative Council in Port Moresby in June he called on Australia to bring it about—in view of what is happening in West New Guinea, he said.

The territories at the moment are administered jointly, for con venience. But while Papua is an Australian Commonwealth territory, in the same way as Norfolk Island and the Northern Territory, New Guinea is aUN Trusteeship Territory held only “on trust". Short of straight out annexation, we can’t see Mr. Guise getting what he wants, and in theory, it is possible that self-determination will be forced upon the New Guinea territory while Papua will remain an Australian depen dency. (In the present climate of international affairs, it would be hard to believe that this will happen.) One person who would have been interested in the appeal for a flag would be Mr. E. A. James, now living in Brisbane, who was a Member of the Legislative Council until 1959.

Papua did once have a flag—unofficially perhaps—but it was one of the things that went by the board when Papua was administratively linked with New Guinea. During his time in the Council, Mr. James made several speeches on Papua’s old flag, deploring the fact the Terri tory no longer had it.

Few people now remember what it was like and no textbooks or handbooks mention it or describe it. Maybe some old Territorian can describe it to us, or send us a photograph or drawing of it, so that we can record it before it is entirely buried in the realms of forgotten history.